Great Basin tribes
Encyclopedia
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
peoples of the Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
inhabited a cultural region
Cultural region
Cultural region is a term used mainly in the fields of anthropology and geography. Specific cultures often do not limit their geographic coverage to the borders of a nation state, or to smaller subdivisions of a state...
between the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, and parts of Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
, Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, and Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. There is very little precipitation in the Great Basin
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...
area, which affects the lifestyles and cultures of the inhabitants. The Great Basin is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas is based upon cultural regions, geography, and linguistics. Anthropologists have named various cultural regions, with fluid boundaries, that are generally agreed upon with some variation...
.
While anthropologists can point to many distinct peoples, they shared certain common cultural elements that distinguished them from the surrounding groups. All but the Washoe
Washoe people
The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
spoke Numic languages
Numic languages
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "person." For...
, and there was considerable intermingling between the groups, which lived peacefully and often shared common territories. They were predominantly hunters and gatherers.
Anthropologists use the terms "Desert Archaic" or more simply "The Desert Culture" to refer to the culture of the Great Basin tribes. This culture is characterized by the need for mobility to take advantage of seasonally available food supplies. The use of pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
was rare due to its weight, but intricate basket
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...
s were woven for containing water, cooking food, winnowing grass seeds and storage—including the storage of pine nuts, a Paiute-Shoshone staple. Heavy items such as metate
Metate
A metate is a mortar, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican culture, metates were typically used by women who would grind calcified maize and other organic materials during food preparation...
s would be cache
Cache (disambiguation)
Cache is in computers, a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere.Cache may also refer to:*Treasure trove, a valuable cache which has been lost, or left unclaimed by the owner, or a place where items are stored...
d rather than carried from foraging area to foraging area. Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
was not practiced within the Great Basin itself, although it was practiced in adjacent areas (modern agriculture in the Great Basin requires either large mountain reservoirs or deep artesian
Artesian aquifer
An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. This type of well is called an artesian well...
wells). Likewise, the Great Basin tribes had no permanent settlements, although winter villages might be revisited winter after winter by the same group of families. In the summer, the largest group was usually the nuclear family
Nuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
due to the low density of food supplies.
In the early historical period the Great Basin tribes were actively expanding to the north and east, where they developed a horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
-riding bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
-hunting culture. These people, including the Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
, Bannock and Eastern Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
are often considered to be Great Plains tribes.
There is evidence that the original inhabitants of the region arrived as early as 10,000 BCE. The first Europeans to reach the area were the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Great Basin settlement by European-Americans relatively late and can be dated to the first Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
settlers who arrived in 1848. Within ten years, the first Indian reservation
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
was established, in order to assimilate the native population. The process included sending children to Indian schools and limiting the reservations..
Because their contact with European Americans occurred so late, Great Basin tribes managed to maintain their religion and culture and were leading proponents of a native renaissance. Two Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s, Wodziwob
Wodziwob
Wodziwob was a Northern Paiute prophet who performed the first Ghost Dance rituals around 1869. The movement spread to other tribes, but died out before Wovoka, better known as Jack Wilson, reintroduced the movement in 1889....
and Wovoka
Wovoka
Wovoka , also known as Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.-Biography:...
, introduced the Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
in a mystical ceremony designed to reestablish the pre-contact "Golden Era," while other, similar ceremonies such as the Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
Bear Dance and the Sun Dance
Sun Dance
The Sun Dance is a religious ceremony practiced by a number of Native American and First Nations peoples, primarily those of the Plains Nations. Each tribe has its own distinct practices and ceremonial protocols...
first emerged in the Great Basin. Similarly, the Peyote
Peyote
Lophophora williamsii , better known by its common name Peyote , is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.It is native to southwestern Texas and Mexico...
Native religion first developed here in response to deteriorating conditions, extreme poverty, and the loss of native cultures and traditions.
Conditions for the Native American population of the Great Basin were erratic throughout the twentieth century. Signs of improvement first emerged as a result of President Franklin Roosevelt's Indian New Deal in the 1940s, while activism and legal victories in the 1970s have improved conditions significantly. Nevertheless, the communities continue to struggle against chronic poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and all of the resulting problems: unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
; substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
; and high suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
rates. Furthermore, fierce debates between "traditionalist" and "progressive" factions have split communities and hindered the population from presenting a united front in determining its future.
Great Basin peoples
- Bannock, Idaho
- Colorado River
- ChemehueviChemehueviThe Chemehuevi are a federally recognized Native American tribe enrolled in the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation. They are the southernmost branch of Paiutes.-Reservation:...
, southeastern California - Southern Paiute, Arizona, Nevada, Utah
- KaibabKaibab Indian ReservationThe Kaibab Indian Reservation the home of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Southern Paiutes. The Indian reservation is located in northern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. It covers a land area of 188.75 square miles in northeastern Mohave County and...
, northwestern Arizona - Kaiparowtis, southwestern Utah
- MoapaMoapa Band of Paiute IndiansThe Moapa Band of Paiute Indians of the Moapa River Indian Reservation are a federally recognized tribe of Paiutes, who live in southern Nevada on the Moapa River Indian Reservation. They were in the past called the Moapats and the Nuwuvi....
, southern Nevada - PanacaPANACAPANACA is a farming theme park that promotes contact between humans and nature, intended for those who live in the city and to create awareness about nature. The park was created in Colombia by a group of businessmen. There are three other parks under construction; one near Bogotá and two...
- Panguitch, Utah
- Paranigets, southern Nevada
- Shivwits, southwestern Utah
- Kaibab
- Chemehuevi
- Fremont cultureFremont cultureThe Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
(400 CE–1300 CE), Utah - KawaiisuKawaiisuthumb|Kawaiisu FamilyThe Kawaiisu are a Native American group who lived in the southern California Tehachapi Valley and across the Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains to the north, toward Lake Isabella and Walker Pass...
, southern inland California - Mono, southeastern California
- Eastern Mono (Owens Valley Paiute), southeastern California
- Western Mono, southeastern California
- Northern Paiute, eastern California, Nevada, Oregon, southwestern Idaho
- KucadikadiKucadikadiThe Kucadikadi are a band of Northern Paiute people who live near Mono Lake in Mono County, California. They are the southernmost band of Northern Paiute.-Name:...
, Mono Lake, California
- Kucadikadi
- ShoshoneShoshoneThe Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
(Shoshoni), Nevada, Idaho, California- Western ShoshoneWestern ShoshoneWestern Shoshone comprises several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related culturally to the Paiute, Goshute, Bannock, Ute, and...
, eastern California, Nevada, north Utah, southeastern Idaho- Duckwater Shoshone Tribe or Tsaidüka, Railroad Valley, Nevada
- GoshuteGoshuteThe Goshutes are a band of Western Shoshone Native American. There are two federally recognized Goshute tribes today: the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah of the Skull Valley Indian Reservation.-Name:The name Goshute derived either from...
, Nevada and Utah - Te-Moak Tribe, made up of the Tonomudza band, Nevada
- Yomba Western Shoshone Tribe,Nevada
- Northern Shoshone, Idaho
- Agaideka (Salmon Eaters), Snake River and Lemhi, Idaho
- Kammedeka (Jackrabbit Eaters), Snake River, Idaho to the Great Salt Lake, Utah
- Lemhi ShoshoneLemhi ShoshoneThe Lemhi Shoshone are a band of Northern Shoshone, called the Akaitikka, Agaideka, or "Eaters of Salmon." The name "Lemhi" comes from Fort Lemhi, a Mormon mission to this group. They traditionally lived in the Lemhi River Valley and along the upper Salmon River in Idaho...
, Lemhi River Valley, Idaho - Pohogwe (People of the Sagebrush Butte) or Fort Hall Shoshone, Idaho
- Tukudeka (Mountain Sheep Eaters), central Idaho, southern Montana, and Yellowstone, Wyoming
- Yahandeka (Groundhog Eaters), Boise, Payette, and Weiser Rivers, Idaho
- Eastern Shoshone, Wyoming
- Kuccuntikka (Buffalo Eaters)
- Tukkutikka or Tukudeka (Mountain Sheep Eaters), joined the Northern Shoshone
- Western Shoshone
- Coso PeopleCoso PeopleThe Coso people are an indigenous people of the Americas and Native American tribe associated with the Coso Range in the Mojave Desert of California in the southwestern U.S.. They are of the Uto-Aztecan language and spoke one of several Numic languages, related to that of the Northern Paiute.They...
, of Coso Rock Art DistrictCoso Rock Art DistrictCoso Rock Art District, containing the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons, is a rock art site containing over 20,000 of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location...
in the Coso RangeCoso RangeThe Coso Range of eastern California is located immediately south of Owens Lake , east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and west of the Argus Range. The southern part of the range lies in the restricted Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake...
, Mojave DesertMojave DesertThe Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
California - TimbishaTimbishaThe Timbisha are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in south central California, near the Nevada border.-History:The Timbisha have lived in the Death Valley region of...
or Panamint or KosoKOSOKOSO is a radio station broadcasting a Hot AC format. Licensed to Patterson, California, USA, it serves the Modesto area. The station is currently owned by Clear Channel Communications.-History:...
, southeastern California - Ute, Colorado, Utah, northern New Mexico
- Capote, southeastern Colorado and New Mexico
- Moanunts, Salina, Utah
- Muache, south and central Colorado
- Pahvant, western Utah
- Sanpits, central Utah
- Timpanogots, north central Utah
- UintahUte Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray ReservationThe Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Ute Indians in Utah. The Uintah are a western band of Ute.-Government:The Uintah and Ouray Reservation headquarters is located in Fort Duchesne, Utah....
, Utah - Uncompahgre or Taviwach, central and northern Colorado
- Weeminuche, western Colorado, eastern Utah, northwestern New Mexico
- White River Utes (Parusanuch and Yampa), Colorado and eastern Utah
- WashoWashoe peopleThe Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...
, Nevada and California - Tulare-Buena Vista region
- Palagewan
- Pahkanapil
See also
- Eastern Woodlands tribesEastern Woodlands tribesThe Eastern Woodlands was a cultural area of the indigenous people of North America. The Eastern Woodlands extended roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Great Plains, and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, which is now the eastern United States and Canada...
- Southeastern tribesSoutheastern tribesSoutheastern Woodlands peoples or Southeastern cultures are an ethnographic classification for Indigenous peoples that have traditionally inhabited the Southeastern United States and the northeastern border of Mexico, that share common cultural traits....